Ocean

A woman in labor needs soothing, comfort, and words of encouragement. It is a long, painful struggle for her, and as a coach, I will need to be prepared for this. I will be helping her endure the pain in any way I can, and this will involve massage and other relaxation techniques. Visualization exercises are one way to help her relax during the contractions. Here is one I have been working on...

You are floating, floating in the middle of a vast ocean on a calm summer day. The water is warm and you hover on the surface, feeling the small waves gently dance against your skin. You float with perfect ease and allow the water to embrace you and comfort you. There is only peace here, and nothing but sun and warmth and serenity in all directions. White, billowy clouds drift slowly by. You extend your arms and feel weightless, like a feather, and allow the water to absorb all your troubles and all your fears. The tranquility is serene and irresistible. It pulls the tension from your shoulders until they are completely relaxed. Your arms melt down to your elbows and then all the way down to your fingertips. Your worries are pulled from the base of your neck and through your upper back, and the sensation cascades down your vertebrae and triggers a soothing warmth throughout your ribs and torso. The weightless relaxation is overwhelming your entire body now, and you find yourself helpless to resist as it absorbs every bit of tension from your waist and thighs all the way down to the tips of your toes. As you relax the sky grows bluer and the water feels warmer, softer, and you become one in this vast ocean of peace that has welcomed you.

You allow the ocean to consume you slowly. You feel your weightless body descend, the water flowing over your feet, legs, and chest. You are at perfect peace. You know the water cannot hurt you. This water of life feels weightless, and you know you can breath normally as you sink beneath the surface, and welcome the refreshing water gently flowing over your cheeks and forehead. You look up and see the waves on the bright ocean's surface and realize you are completely submerged in this vast ocean, and are perfectly at ease here in every way. You relax and allow this ocean to take you, surround you, and consume you. The more you relax, the more you feel yourself sinking, and the surface grows more distant above you. You descend slowly, deeper and deeper as the waves drift farther and farther away. You have fallen into a new marine world. As you fall, the turquoise water begins to turn blue. As you continue to relax, you fall deeper, and the water grows darker, first into a blue, then to purple. You realize your body can move effortlessly in this new ocean world, and you float deeper and deeper still as the surface becomes lost entirely and darkness surround you. You have become one with the ocean, and know you are in a place of perfect safety, and although it is completely safe, it is also vast and unexplored...

You move freely in the warm waters of this deep, deep ocean. You must be miles and miles down by now, but you continue to descend, and blackness surrounds you. Deeper, deeper. Then, you notice there is something glowing faintly in the distance, far, far below you. It is a barely perceptible green, and you swim towards it. Miles and miles, deeper and deeper. It is green, and becomes less faint as you swim towards it. So incredibly deep now, but you keep descending. You keep descending toward the green light. Then, as you gaze into this glowing green light you notice tiny shapes. Squares, circles, and lines. As you approach them they get bigger, and you see roads and houses, all so tiny and distant, still far, far beneath you in this perfectly clear water. You descend and see churches and schools and people walking on the sidewalks. There are others floating around over the roads and buildings, and you want to join them and see this underwater city. Finally, you float all the way down to a street and feel your feet touch the ocean surface. There are shops on both sides with windows and people walking around in them. You look up and see street lights that cast a green glow over the whole street. You walk down the sidewalk and admire the little shops and carts, and people going about their daily lives. A guide invites you to float with him as he shows you all the town landmarks, the statues, the museums, the art galleries.

Then, the guide drifts into an apartment, and you follow, and it seems familiar. You feel welcomed here, and at home. It is bright and spacious, with plenty of room for floating around. There is a table with a vase and flowers, a fireplace, some cozy furniture, and all the amenities you could ever need. It is the special apartment that has been reserved for you, and it is available whenever you need it. It is a place that nobody knows about except you, and it is the perfect place where nothing can ever disturb you in any way. The guide explains that it has been here all along, and is so glad you finally came to enjoy it. You drift onto the comfy bed and close your eyes and know that nothing can ever trouble you ever again.

After you have rested for an eternity and enjoyed your special underwater apartment, you see that everything is in order. The bed is made, the counters are clean, and you float out of your special apartment and look up into the darkness. It seems to be calling for you, and you notice that almost without thinking you are floating up towards it, and you let yourself go, floating up, and up, and up. You look down as the streets and houses grow smaller and smaller and the roads turn to tiny lines. The bright green glow grows fainter and fainter as you ascend, until it is almost imperceptible. Then, you notice complete blackness, silence. You float up, and up, and up, and finally see some very dark purple high above you. The dark purple slowly turns to very dark blue and then a rich, deep blue. Then, as you ascend, you look up and see turquoise, and finally detect the waves way up on the surface. You float towards them, and the sun is bright and you see streaks of sun rays pierce the water, and finally the surface is right above you, and your face breaks through the surface and you feel the warm sun again on your body, and the fresh breezes on your cheeks, and see the large blue sky with white, billowy clouds drifting slowly by.

Lady Gaga on National Defense

Lady Gaga insists senators "do their job," repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, and permit closet homosexuals in the military to identify themselves. Further, she believes the prohibition of openly gay soldiers in the military "infringes on of civil rights."

This story is from the front page of CNN.

I wonder why more pop singers aren't making their contribution to these crucial matters of national defense policy. I, for one, see no reason why Nora Jones hasn't used her success in music to change politics for the better, specifically, to compel officers and generals to disclose their sexual orientation and those of members of their battalions. Indeed, is the whole music industry derelict in their responsibility to advance the public good by ignoring these important matters! After all, we're the world's last superpower. You'd think one member of Cake could give a shout out for the closeted fairy in Company B. What has this world come to when our most talented American icons are helpless to wield the legislative pen?

How are our politicians supposed to know what the hell to do without sages like Gaga telling them what the populous thinks? Have we descended so far into anarchy that the words of a woman so well-known, so in-your-face, can do nothing to shape the future of our military policy?

Let us all breathe a sigh of relief that Gaga will not be ignored. Yes, her words, and the exposure of the National Media will persuade, cajole, and outright stuff the ballot box to ensure the mob of the majority usurps reason at every opportunity.

I am not afraid that gay men will soon be permitted to identify potential sexual partners in their barracks, and even have incentive to join the military in order to do so.

Thucydides

You've probably never heard of this guy. I hadn't. He was the Athenian who wrote The History of the Peloponnesian Wars. These were the wars between Athens and Sparta.

If I had the floor before the Council on Foreign Relations, the Department of Homeland Security, or even the Department of Defense, I might share this brief observation from the 5th century B.C.

It is useless to attack a man who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.

But, I'm even more fond of the following...

A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.

Who was this guy, and why couldn't he live in our century?

The Best Slave

The following is an excerpt from the graduation speech by Erica Goldson, valedictorian of Coxsacki-Athens high school student, age 18. (full text here)

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave.

...

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it.

And, the last paragraph...

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let's go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we're smart enough to do so!

As someone who endured public school and also observed the development of academic assessment software, this speech gave me chills. Although her youthful exuberance paints this dismal and serious situation with vibrant colors, there is an eerie feeling of dread that her words do not fall on deaf ears, but those whose indoctrination efforts obviously require improvement.

American academia, the assembly of interconnected public institutions dedicated to the systematic removal of humanity and individuality from children in order to produce docile, obedient, subservient slaves for efficient labor in the future Corporate/Government Industrial Complex, seems to have failed here. With this particular student, years of influence, generations of indoctrinated teachers, and an arsenal of carefully crafted textbooks couldn't sufficiently do the job. The overwhelming facade of legitimacy in buildings, auditoriums, classrooms, desks, whiteboards, and computers was still not enough to break this one student of common sense. Somehow, the efforts of all the forces working together to advance the cohesive lie over the most impressionable years of childhood were exposed and smashed to pieces in one brutal speech.

What does this speech say to me? It is just a sad reminder that much of what the world calls "humanity" pursues death as a matter of course. In so doing, through ignorance or spite or carelessness, they groom the same pursuit deep into the psyche of the next generation. Academia is very effective at this, and is the hive of the wasp colony that eventually becomes our government bureaucracy. The old and wrong linger and die while a few bright sparks like Erica expose the embarrassing and obvious truth before being stifled, threatened, appeased, or somehow cornered into silence by one or more pincers of popular society. She has bitten off a large chunk, but did it at the right time, as there is still some refreshing and non-threatening naivete acting as her shield. More importantly, there is an empty but persistent vestige of general respect for the sanctity of young people's minds that will vanish a little bit with every astute valedictorian speech.

Mediocrity is forgiven more easily than talent. The plain truth isn't forgiven at all.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. -Friedrich Nietzsche